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A sense of febrile paralysis hangs over Westminster, reminiscent of the dark days of the late 1970s when an embattled minority Labour administration struggled to cope with crippling industrial unrest and economic decline.

Earlier in the 20th century there were also major crises of democracy: in 1931, when the party system collapsed in the face of global financial meltdown; and just before the First World War, when a minority Liberal government, propped up by Irish MPs, was badly shaken by agitation from the trade unions, the suffragettes and the Ulster Unionists.

Unlike some of those previous episodes, the present crisis is largely self-inflicted.

At its heart is the refusal of the political class to respect the wishes of the electorate.

Instead of embracing national independence, the establishment has done all it can to thwart Brexit.

The policy has been not implementation but deceit and retreat.

As the former foreign secretary Boris Johnson put it in his powerful resignation letter on Monday: “We are sending our vanguard into battle with the white flags fluttering above them.”

The Chequers compromise was the nadir of this approach, with its plan to tie Britain permanently to Brussels.

Chequers summit (Image: EPA)

In the view of Sir Ivan Rogers, the former British ambassador to the EU, the scheme would actually “result in the biggest loss of UK sovereignty since accession in 1973”.

Even freedom of movement, which Leave voters strongly opposed, is back on the table under the euphemistic title of a “labour mobility partnership”.

As a result of this chasm between the ruling elite and the majority of the electorate British democracy is now breaking down on every front.

In Parliament there is a destructive stalemate. Having squandered its majority in last year’s botched general election, the Government is permanently hamstrung, dependent on the DUP and dangerously vulnerable to revolt.

Even if Theresa May could cobble together a deal with the EU, it is difficult to see how she would get it through the Commons.

Only six Tory rebels would be needed for defeat, though the Brexiteer European Research Group, headed by Jacob Rees-Mogg, probably has at least 60 supporters. ­

Neither Labour nor the Lib Dems have any interest in helping a divided Tory Government.

“I think the Chequers compromise is going to be voted down in the Commons,” said one Cabinet minister yesterday.

Just as worrying for our democracy is the breakdown in Cabinet rule.

The British political system depends on the accountability of elected ministers to Parliament but, in the case of Brexit, the process has been farmed out to unelected, unaccountable civil servants such as Olly Robbins, Downing Street’s European adviser, a man so powerful that he makes Sir Humphrey Appleby look like a temporary desk clerk.

It was precisely in protest at this takeover by the Whitehall mandarins that the Brexit Secretary David Davis resigned.

The growing power of Whitehall is wielded entirely to emasculate Brexit and keep Brussels in charge.

That reality is clearly exposed in the Government’s cowardly negotiating method over the past two years, in which all leverage has been lost by a string of concessions such as the £39billion “divorce” bill.

Effectively, Michel Barnier and his EU team have been allowed to set the agenda.

This is the very antithesis of Brexit, which was meant to enhance our national democracy.

Instead, the ­Government has paradoxically strengthened the influence of a foreign, quasi-imperialist oligarchy over Britain.

What makes this crisis all the more terrifying is the impetus it has given to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party.

Chequers summit in pictures: Theresa May's big Brexit meeting

Fri, July 6, 2018

The Prime Minister gathered her cabinet together ahead of a crunch Brexit showdown at her country retreat at Chequers in Buckinghamshire